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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349871">Revolution</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh'>debwalsh</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Worth a Second Look and Then Some [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Fandom Trumps Hate, Fluff, Labor Unions, M/M, Married Couple, Not Canon Compliant, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:41:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349871</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Newlyweds Steve and Bucky find themselves the favorite babysitters for young Moms on Branagh Island, even though they’ve never actually offered to take care of kids - and aren’t entirely sure what they’re doing.</p><p>When Steve asks his students about who normally watches the kids, he plants the seed for a revolution.</p><p>My Fandom Trumps Hate 2020 story for AuntieSuze!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Worth a Second Look and Then Some [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1301003</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fandom Trumps Hate 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Revolution</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/auntiesuze/gifts">auntiesuze</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The prompt was:  </p><p>I would looooooooove it if you wrote something in the "Worth a Second Look and Then Some" series. I'm a sucker for kid!fic and Bucky did mention something about kids in the original story, so anything about them with their own child or those students that adore them would be awesome. But whatever you want to do with that is fine by me! :)</p><p>Okay, let’s see what the boys have to say!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, Megan, um -“</p><p>“Thanks so much, Steve!I’m really lucky I can rely on you and Bucky to look after the kids.I need this trip to the mainland so bad!I’ll be back on tonight’s ferry - you can give the kids dinner, right?” Megan Abernathy called as she slid into the passenger seat of her friend Ellie’s car.They were pulling out of the driveway before Steve had a chance to answer, leaving him to sigh and rest back against Buck’s steady and solid chest, a toddler - Megan’s younger kid - held in with one arm and perched on his hip.</p><p>“Third time this week,” Bucky said, frowning as he tousled the kid’s blond hair.</p><p>“Did someone put an ad on Facebook saying we’re a childcare center or something?” Steve asked, letting his head loll momentarily against Bucky’s shoulder.</p><p>“Dunno.But let’s get these munchkins settled and we can figure out our day, huh?Whaddya say, squirt?Wanna come meet Daisy?” Bucky cajoled with a big ole grin that was equal parts Brooklyn and Branagh Island, with maybe a soupçon of liberated Paris with the Howlies.Steve could feel the stupid smile softening his own features.Damn, he was gone on this guy.</p><p>And he didn’t manage to school his features soon enough, because Bucky glanced at him as he straightened, and he got to see a mirror image of how sappy he must look when Bucky smiled at him.He leaned in and planted a quick, sweet kiss on Steve’s lips, and Steve felt like his skin was buzzing. </p><p>So, business as usual.</p><p>“C’mon, doll.I feel the need to bake cookies comin’ on - howzabout you?”</p><p>“Cookies?” Iittle Kyle asked hopefully from where he sat on Steve’s hip.</p><p>“You’re committed now, babe.What kinda cookies do you think Bucky should make, huh?” Steve asked with a fond grin.</p><p>“French fries!” the little boy cried with a giggle.</p><p>“French fried cookies.Hmm.I dunno, I think maybe it’s better to bake ‘em, don’t you?” Bucky asked as they went back into the house, where Kyle’s older sister Eileen was rolling around the floor with Daisy.</p><p>&amp;&amp;&amp;</p><p>“Okay, so I wanted to ask a little bit of a personal question. Anyone can answer.I was just wondering what people normally do on the island when they need a babysitter.”</p><p>Steve settled back on the edge of his desk and waited for a response from his class, his open expression morphing into a frown as the kids exchanged knowing glances, talking furtively under their breaths and behind fisted hands.Finally, he cleared his throat and asked, “Somebody gonna let me in on the secret?”</p><p>“It’s the Moms,” Joey Phillips answered then with a shrug.</p><p>“The Moms,” Steve repeated.</p><p>“The Mom Conspiracy,” Elena Gomez corrected.“It’s like a club of moms with young kids - babies, toddlers - who meet around the island.Library, bakery, bar - you name it, they meet there. You’re their latest project.”</p><p>“Project?” Steve asked, curious.He pushed off from the edge of the desk and walked around to the desk to put his hands on the back of his desk chair.“What project?”</p><p>“Baby fever, of course!” Sylvie Gladstone replied with a giggle.“They want you to fall in love with their spawn so you’ll make your own!”</p><p>Steve could feel the blush rising up from under his collar, heating his ears and staining his cheeks.“Uh, it doesn’t really work that way -“</p><p>“Surrogate or adoption, whatever,” shrugged Eddie Thomas.“Too much drama.” </p><p>“Kids.Me and Buck?”</p><p>Christina Wen beamed.“You’re just too cute - the Moms want you to join them.Strictly platonically!But they want you to want your own kids - that’s why they keep foisting theirs on you!”</p><p>“Huh.”He considered Christina’s response for a moment before asking, “So who did they have babysit before they picked us?”</p><p>“Us,” Christina shrugged, and several of the other teens, male and female, muttered commiseration. </p><p>Greg Yang shook his head, his expression glum.“Yeah, I used to get tagged to look after my little brother, earn a few bucks, too.But now Mom’s dropping him off with you, there goes my extra cash.”Some of the others murmured agreement, and Steve could tell that the cuteness of two gay superheroes with kids came with the dark side of teens missing out on valuable opportunities to earn their own money.</p><p>“Hmmm.”</p><p>&amp;&amp;&amp;</p><p>“Wait. Seriously?”</p><p>Steve sipped at his coffee and nodded.He and Bucky were in their kitchen preparing dinner - Buck doing the actual preparation involving lifting the roast chicken out of the over while Steve supervised over a new roast from the Baked Beanery, their favorite coffee and bakery shop in town.</p><p>“Fuckin’ cheapskates!” Bucky swore as he placed the savory chicken on the trivet to cool a bit before slicing.</p><p>“Yeah.Apparently the Moms have plotted to ensure that all babysitting is done by us, leaving all our kids out of the loop.”</p><p>“And not once have they offered to pay us for our services,” Bucky complained, pulling Steve’s coffee cup out of his hand so he could have a sip.“Ooh. I like that.More in the pot?”</p><p>Steve nodded as he recovered his mug and Bucky went over to pour one of his own.“Yeah, so the Moms aren’t paying their regular sitters, they’re not paying us, and it looks like most of them are taking advantage of the opportunity to go to Boston or wherever, rather than spend the money back into the Branagh economy.”</p><p>“Cheap and disloyal? Oh, no.This will not stand.”</p><p>“Listen to you,” Steve said with a grin.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You.Sounding all butch.”</p><p>“Hah. I’ve always been butch and you know it.”</p><p>Steve leaned in and planted a kiss on Bucky’s pouty lips and nodded.“Yep.My guy.”</p><p>“If you’re trying to distract me, it’s working,” Bucky said then with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.</p><p>Steve reached up and smoothed his thumb across Bucky’s forehead, fingering an errant curl.“Not trying to distract.Just admiring.You know.‘Cos you’re so pretty.”</p><p>“I am.And I know you love it.But what’re we gonna do about these Moms?”</p><p>“Yeah.About that,” Steve replied, letting go of Bucky’s hair and taking a step back.“Me and the kids were talking.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.This is gonna cost me, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Not really?I mean, we had some ideas.But I wanted to talk about the thing the Moms are about.”</p><p>“You mean kids.Us, having kids.”</p><p>“Yeah.I mean, we haven’t talk about it.But ... well, is it something you’d want?”</p><p>Bucky looked at Steve with an impenetrable expression for a long, silent moment.It was almost like looking into the face of the Winter Soldier again.Then Bucky tilted his head, and answered, “I’ve thought about it.I mean, back then, it was expected, right?But I remember liking kids.My sisters.I ... wouldn’t mind, I guess.If the conditions were right.”</p><p>“Conditions?”</p><p>“Well, first of all, do you want kids?”</p><p>Now it was Steve’s turn to mull over an answer.He’d been thinking of little else since the kids revealed the Mom plot earlier that day, and he hadn’t really come up with a definitive answer.Like Bucky, there were conditions.Or rather, conditions could change how he’d answer.</p><p>“I think we’re on the same page, Buck.If the conditions were right.I remember your sisters - I remember worshiping the ground they pranced on.You’d make a great dad, I know you would.It’s just that ...”</p><p>“We’re still figuring out us.We haven’t even been together a year.Hell, we haven’t even been gay a year.I’d like to think it’s an option we can explore together, when we feel like we’re ready.But I don’t need a kid to make my life with you complete.I just need you.”</p><p>Steve reached for Bucky then, tugging him close to share a sweet kiss.“Me, too, Buck.Me, too.”He tilted his face to place a soft kiss against Bucky’s forehead, and then rested his forehead against Bucky’s for a moment.They were quiet together, until Steve’s stomach growled, loudly.</p><p>Bucky shifted back, laughing softly.“Don’t get between a super-soldier and his dinner, huh?”</p><p>“Not a super-soldier anymore,” Steve grumbled.“Just a fella who loves his husband’s cooking.”</p><p>“Super-dork, then.”</p><p>“Your super-dork.”</p><p>“‘S’okay.I’m planning to keep you.”</p><p>“Good, ‘cos I’m planning to keep you.”</p><p>“We really are a pair of saps, aren’t we?” Bucky grinned as he went back to work on getting their dinner plated.“So tell me about this plan you put together with the kids while I toil away at feeding my man.”</p><p>&amp;&amp;&amp;</p><p>Ultimately, the plan expanded so that both Steve and Bucky could work it into their lesson plans.Both met with the Principal to discuss their ideas, and were approved to move forward. </p><p>In Bucky’s class, Grace Helfer volunteered to coordinate a canvas of the students to pull together a list of everyone who routinely babysat, whether for their own parents, or others on the island. Eddie and Christina worked with her to develop a survey form and set it up on a web site Elena and Sylvie designed so they could collect the data.The team also pulled together a list from another online survey they built, this one of the parents who continued to use their services vs. the ones who dumped their kids on Steve and Bucky.</p><p>Armed with that data, the kids put together mailing lists so they could send out targeted e-mails for an event to be hosted at Steve and Bucky’s place.They drafted e-mails for different lists, and ran those by Bucky, who vetted them by the Principal.Bucky was all sorts of pleased with himself and overly cocky when he informed Steve that the Principal liked where this was going, and was considering adding something like this to the school’s regular calendar - a real-world exercise in civic engagement.</p><p>In the meantime, in Steve’s class, the kids started designing various posters, using different media and printing methods.A couple of teens coordinated poster orders with the island’s only print shop, while other cuts stencils to do a limited edition screen printing.Flyers were designed and printed using school equipment, and distribution teams were identified and sent off with the plan for what went where and when.</p><p>It didn’t take long for the community to take notice of the eye-catching campaign, and for the posters to start disappearing - not out of protest, but because they quickly became collectors items.Steve’s swagger over triggering literal bidding wars over the art being created by his kids nearly caused Bucky to pop a boner right in the school hallway, but he wasn’t about to admit it to his fella.At least not on school property.</p><p>E-mails were sent, more posters were created, and the kids added an online store to the web site so they could sell mint, numbered versions of the campaign posters that had been snatched up - and snatched off - where they’d been posted around the island.</p><p>Steve and Bucky got permission from the Principal to let the kids keep the proceeds from the posters, to divide up amongst themselves.After all, this all started from a shift in economics that had cost the kids a big chunk of their babysitting income.The boys decided to cover all the other costs themselves, including the catering costs for the event at their home.Bucky considered cooking - or more likely grilling - but when they tallied up all the RSVPs the team had collected, he deemed it a hard no, and they called in the services of several island eateries.</p><p>Car-pooling was heavily recommended, but still there were quite a few vehicles coming up the road toward their place.Luckily, they’d designated a section of lawn across from the garages as overflow parking, because it was starting to look like they were hosting a music festival on their grounds.Steve filed the idea away for later - it could be another fun thing to have the kids put together.</p><p>By this time on a Saturday the last few weeks, Steve and Bucky would’ve found themselves suddenly responsible for someone’s kids while they went off to have a day with their friends.Today, all the Moms showed up with their kids in tow, and Steve and Bucky waved, but made no effort to take responsibility for the children.Instead, their students passed out programs they’d designed and organized themselves, encouraged the Moms to have a seat and keep their children under control.Most of the school staff was there (including LG and his new boyfriend), a number of parents to the teens, people from all over the island whose interest had been piqued by the kids’ campaign, and the folks who’d be handling the food. At the appointed hour, Christina Wen stepped up to the mike of the PA system the kids had borrowed from school, while Eddie and Joey wheeled up a flat screen monitor and set it up behind her.Then they handed her the remote and she made her pitch.</p><p>Steve reached for Bucky’s hand and squeezed as Christina explained the economic impacts to the island, extrapolating from the loss of income for the babysitters, compounded by the savings being spent off-island.She showed the immediate impact to the local economy from just the past three weeks, and then segued into charts and graphs showing the long-term impact of funds bleeding off the island.</p><p>The Moms had started the presentation off looking perky and mildly bored, but as Christina continued to show calculations, they were squirming.Some of them were casting glances toward Steve and Bucky, frowning like they felt betrayed, or expected some kind of rescue from the ex-superheroes.The boys resolutely showed no emotions, and kept their attention on Christina.</p><p>Finally, she concluded, “We can’t demand that you hire us.We can’t demand that you spend your money here at home.But we thought you would benefit from seeing the impact your plan has had so far, and what could happen if it continues.We’ve also formed what is essentially a babysitters’ union for Branagh Island.We’ve set up a web site for requests to be handled so that we can match needs to providers, and all members of the union commit to spending at least 50 per cent of our earnings on the island economy.Thank you.”</p><p>Christina bowed her head quickly and walked off, a smattering of applause following in her wake.Steve and Bucky clapped loudly, encouraging a more enthusiastic response.Once he was satisfied the applause fit the effort, Steve trotted up to the mike and greeted the audience with a smile.</p><p>“Thanks very much, Christina!I want everyone to know that what started out as a benign but kind of misguided effort by some of our friends here,” he waved in the general direction of the audience, “became a very enlightening and I think engaging project for our students.Everything about this project was designed, implemented, and analyzed by our students. And we could not be prouder.Everyone involved gets As in both art and history as a result, so well done!” Steve added, stepping back to clap again as Bucky came up around the crowd to join him.</p><p>Bucky kissed him on the lips, grinning broadly, and leaned in to the mike to announce, “And we wanted to add that while we appreciate the thought, neither of us is ready to make any kind of commitment to starting a family.We’re still newlyweds, and still figuring out who we are together.And to that end, Casa Barnes-Rogers will be closed to child care in the future, but we know of some great babysitters you can find at BranaghCare.org, the new web site the kids have put together.Now, let’s eat!”</p><p>And with that, their friends who were catering the event started to dish out food from chafing dishes and trays from multiple stations.Steve and Bucky looked around and cuddled in place as they watched the people of their adopted home enjoying themselves.</p><p>“Steve, Bucky?” they heard Megan Abernathy say from behind, so they turned to face her.They were smiling, she looked chagrined.“I wanted to apologize.We took advantage of you, but we did it with the best of intentions -“</p><p>Bucky smiled at her.“We know.And we can see your perspective - having children makes you happy and you wanted to share the wealth.But like I said, we’re not ready for that yet.We’re still in our honeymoon phase, still getting to know each other as husbands.We’re not sure if kids are right for us.But we love our students, and ultimately this gave us a chance to do something meaningful with them.So it’s all good.Just, next time you want to convince someone of something ... ask first, huh?”</p><p>She looked like she’d just sucked on a lemon, but she nodded nonetheless. “Thanks,” she told them, and went over to collect her children to get in line for food.</p><p>After she’d gone, they went over to join one of the lines, piling up their plates with all kinds of goodies.Settling on one of the wrought iron benches Howard had installed around the property, Bucky draped his arm over Steve’s shoulders and looked around, smiling.“This really was surprisingly useful. Now that we got the school on board, what’re we gonna do next year?”</p><p>“I dunno.Maybe we can take on something simple, like global warming, or something.We’ll figure it out.We always do.Y’know, together.” </p><p>“You’re a sap.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know.But I’m not alone.”</p><p>Bucky leaned in and brushed his lips against Steve’s hair.“Nope.Not now.Not ever. We’re saps together.”</p><p>“Til the end of -“</p><p>Bucky shoved a piece of cornbread in Steve’s mouth and grinned.Steve chewed and grinned right back.</p><p>Life was good.</p><p>&amp;&amp;&amp;</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was an interesting challenge, because I suppose the automatic assumption is going to be yay, Steve and Bucky have kids!  But their relationship is new, and still settling in.  And while I don’t think there’s any danger to that relationship, they deserve some time to enjoy just being a couple before they add more than just Daisy to the equation.</p><p>So they led me down a different path, but I think helping the students organize would be very much a Steve sort of thing to do.</p><p>And by the way, the idea of student protest posters being stolen is based on something that happened when I was in college.  I was a journalism student, and a friend and I were covering a student protest at Tyler College of Art.  One of the big problems with the protest was that all the signs - designed by the students themselves - kept disappearing because they were so good, people treated them as collector’s items and coveted art pieces.</p><p>Thank you, AuntieSuze, for your donation to Unsilence!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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